Advocacy Visit To UNODC In Ikoyi

One of the major activities of the UNODC project is advocacy, on the 25th of January 2016; Centre for the Right to Health (CRH) visited United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) field office in Ikoyi, Lagos State at about 11.20am. In attendance at the meeting were Chinedu, Tina, Grace, Joshua and Victor from CRH while Harsheth, Pedro and Shadrach represented UNODC.

POINTS DISCUSSED INCLUDE;

Trainings: Harsheth said UNODC will conduct training for project staff in all the NGOs that UNODC contracted for this project and have started negotiations with their consultant Dr. Richard Pates to go round these NGOs and conduct the training along with other UNODC staff. The training will be a 2-3 days practical session where the clients will be invited from the bunks to their various DICs or offices (in our case CRH office) of the CSOs for counseling and Dr. Pates will work alongside the counselors and other team members after the clients leave the session.

There is a key project staff training coming up in September 2016 and UNODC will disseminate information regarding the date, time and who is to attend the training.

Reports: Harsheth said that she has been receiving all our monthly reports we send to her via email and apologized for not acknowledging them. She also said there will be no need to send hard copies of report to her, since UNODC doesn’t have space for too much paper work. She is happy with our reporting timeline so far. She said CRH should prepare for the visit of accounts/audit team that will be coming to our office around 15th August, 2016. All receipts of expenses we have done so far should be arranged according to the months the funds were used. Shadrach, Pedro and Folusho from Abuja office will visit for the auditing. She will be going on leave from 29th July and won’t be around till mid-August.

IEC Materials: UNODC is developing IEC materials that can be used for the target community and other CSOs can also benefit from that. At the moment they don’t have materials to share or give out to us but on Saturday 3rd of September 2016, UNODC will be pre-testing the IEC materials with CRH staff in our office. That they would need most of the project staff to come for 1hour so as to fine tune the materials and make input where necessary before it will be mass produced.

Second Installment of Project Funds: Chinedu asked Harsheth when the second installment of project funds will be sent to CRH. Harsheth asked Shadrach to give update on that and he said that they are working on the second installment, within now and end of August 2016 we should get it. Chinedu reminded them that CRH has already been using funds from other projects within to run the UNODC project since January and need to start reimbursing those projects where the funds came from. Mr. Shadrach also said that we have a valid contract with UNODC and even if we use our funds to carry out the project, we will definitely be refunded.

Experiences from the Field: Pedro asked Mr. Joshua to share experiences from the possibilities of drug detoxification especially since they live within the neighborhood. Mr. Joshua shared his personal story and when he was into drugs and that he decided he really wanted to quit drugs, he was determined and steadfast and with support from his family, he was. Mr. Joshua also talked about support group meetings which help the clients to share ways forward.

Tina talked about personal hygiene of the clients especially the females, she said that some are pregnant, there is a teenage client and some are nursing mothers. Harsheth encouraged her to ensure that these female clients use the bathroom whenever they come to the DIC and also provide sanitary pads for them. Chinedu also said that CRH provides condoms and lubricants for clients to ensure sexually transmitted infections are prevented.

Harsheth asked if we have bought the Television for the DIC and Chinedu replied that we have already bought a music sound system, that we are waiting for the second installment to arrive so we would do most of the things outline that are cost demanding like the Television and indoor sport/games. Harsheth assured that she will quicken the approval of funds knowing that CRH is doing a lot of work in that regard.

CONCLUSION

From the meeting, it was understood that CRH is the only CSO that started in January while others started in June when the first installment was paid. Harsheth said UNODC is pleased to have us in their office and we can call, mail or visit them whenever we have concerns, success or anything else we want to discuss with them. The meeting came to an end at about 1.15pm with group photographs taken and attendance sheet signed.